This needs to come out now as it’s been seriously escalating.
For two years now, I have been relentlessly bullied and attacked online. Around the start of 2014, an unknown assailant has been leaving nasty and insulting comments about both me and my work on this blog. The comments got so vicious that I had to switch this blog over to moderation. This hasn’t completely helped as the attacker continues to post insulting comments and even challenges me to “cowardly” delete the comments.
Here’s an example of one such comment from my post about being one-fifth through Sunnyville –
Stu
stu@you.com
174.236.75.248
Your constant self-praising is the reason people think you are an asshole.
The comments have been nastier. The attacker left another insulting response on my 25 days of Christmas day 6 post –
Frog
Ggg@frog.com
24.146.193.52
Your work is NOT GOOD. Your work is sloppy and crude. And I know you can’t see it but believe me, most people can. If you weren’t a coward, you’d post where art professionals post and not on the deviantart hug box.
Yout work is nowhere near as good you think it is.
I responded to the attacker and they became much more vicious –
Frog
Ggg@frog.com
98.116.209.35
What authority do YOU have to say your work is on par with others? I’m tired of watching you stroke your own ego and demand the same level of respect as folks with real talent. Respect is earned, not entitled, and you haven’t earned it with your sloppy, derivative work.
There’s no critique on deviantart. It’s just hugs and smilies and real feedback is frowned on. If you genuinely cared about improving your craft, you would post on forums where critique is encouraged, such as (but not limited to) SomethingAwful, the PennyArcade art forums, and conceptArt.org. Real artists get real praise and feedback from those sites, while you would be roundly laughed at.
This attacker uses fake names and fake email addresses to beat spam protection and keeps generating multiple IP addresses to get around banning.
This is not the end of it. This person has an actual hate page against Sunnyville which is also loaded up with plenty of personal attacks against me. This person harassed me on Twitter under the username of jgrady6. This person made multiple accounts on Goodreads to give one-star ratings and bad reviews of everything I’ve ever done. (These have since been taken down by the Goodreads staff.)
Things escalated seriously this week. The unknown attacker made an account on TV Tropes under the username of “JaneGradient” and vandalized the TV Tropes entry, loading it up with many attacks. Attempts to change the entry back leads to an edit war where they restore to its previous malicious edits.
I also have reason to believe that this unidentified assailant has forged pornographic artwork of the Sunnyville characters using cutting, pasting and editing in an image editor program, even going as far as to fake my signature to make it look like I created said work. They seem obsessed with making me look like a hypocrite who claims to draw general audiences work. (That’s why I already addressed this before.)
This has been going on for two years now; it’s taking a toll on both me and working Sunnyville. Why is this happening?
Based on the above comments made, I have reason to believe that I’m being endlessly bullied online just for making comics.
This is a strange reason to viciously attack someone for two years and pursue them on many online venues. I’ve known people attacked for drawing politically oriented comics (both left-wing and right-wing). I’ve known some people who were attacked for drawing sexual material. I must be the first to be bullied relentlessly just for creating and drawing a comic story.
While there are reasons I’m suffering from burnout from my work, this unknown cyberbully is a big reason I’m feeling burned out from all this work on Sunnyville. Nobody deserves to be targeted like this, especially just for creating a comic and telling the world about it.
In spite of these constant, round-the-clock attacks, it is not my intention to throw in the towel. No matter what happens, I will keep going on. I will see Sunnyville through to the end in spite of whatever insults or lies this bully throws at me.
Sunnyville Stories won’t be going anywhere, everyone. This saga will continue. I hope I will be able to count on all of you fans and readers for your support.
Thank you.
